Just the same, Patience felt acutely uncomfortable as she waited in the antler-hung hallway of the inn while the elegant young lady who condescended to act as barmaid retired with the cheque to the nether regions. When she returned she was more haughty than ever. “No; sorry,” she said, “we don’t cash cheques for transients.”
Patience felt herself blushing. “But Mrs Ffeathers is not a transient. She says she’s been dealing here for years.”
“That’s as may be,” said the young lady, “but Mr Pangbourne says we don’t cash her cheques. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, I’m sure” – she was clearly delighted – “but that’s what he said. You can see him if you want to.”
This finally routed Patience. “Oh, no, thank you; I’ll just have to tell Mrs Ffeathers …” The young lady had turned her back and Patience dwindled unhappily down the hall and out into the street.
Not a successful expedition. She had paid for the chocolate animals and Mrs Ffeathers’ pills out of her own dwindling resources, and would have to give up her project of a relaxed and Featherstoneless tea in The Old Bunhouse, across the road; and anyway, it was getting dark.
It was quite dark when she got back to Featherstone Hall, and Mrs Ffeathers was full of solicitude.
“Inconsiderate old party that I am,” she greeted Patience, with eyes even more sparkling than usual, “I was so set on my sweets I clean forgot how soon the afternoons close in these days. But you’re such a capable girl; I’m sure you can find your way anywhere in the dark.” She seemed to find something particularly amusing in the idea. “And did you manage without anyone knowing? What a clever girl!”
She was being mocked, Patience thought, and wondered just why. It added, somehow, to an uncomfortable feeling that had been in the back of her mind all afternoon. There was more, she could not help thinking, to this expedition than Mrs Ffeathers had let on.
“Here are your pills.” She took the little packet out of her bag. “But I’m afraid I couldn’t cash the cheque. They didn’t seem to know you at the Black Stag.”
Mrs Ffeathers burst into delighted laughter. “I don’t suppose they did. I’ve never bought so much as a bottle of soda water there. Oh, Patience, you are a gullible pet; it’s really too bad to take advantage of you. I really half thought they’d cash it for you, you’re so blessedly sure of yourself. That’s why I made it for fifty, just to be sure.” She took the cheque from Patience, tore it in tiny pieces and put it carefully in the centre of the fire.
“But I don’t understand,” said Patience, half puzzled, half angry.
“I don’t suppose you do. That cheque, my love, was one I stopped at the bank yesterday. I told them someone had taken it out of my book and I couldn’t be answerable for what happened to it. And if the bank ever shows whoever looked at it at the Black Stag my signature – and if they’ve any kind of a memory, which I don’t suppose they have – they’ll say the signatures were bad forgeries. Just the kind of thing a girl who didn’t know me very well might try to do. Now d’you understand?” Mrs Ffeathers sat back in her chair, her bright eyes sparkling with satisfaction. “Now I think you’ll tell me what they say about me in the dining room, my girl, and any other little thing I want to know, and without quite so many of your holier-than-thou airs and graces either, or you may find yourself answering some awkward questions from the police.”
“But you wouldn’t …” Patience’s voice shook.
“Oh, wouldn’t I? You ask the others; they know. But don’t you worry.” She leaned forward and patted Patience’s hand as it lay limply on the arm of her chair. “I won’t do it. I like you, Patience; you’ve got a will of your own and I respect you for it. Don’t forget; I’ve left you all my money, and I mean it. Just you be reasonable with me, and I’ll be fair with you, but I want you to know you’ve got to treat me with respect. I’ve lived for ninety years and always had my way, and I’m not going to be crossed now. I just wanted to make you see that. And now you run away and change your dress. Priss’s and Mary’s young men are both going to be here for dinner, and you want to look your best for them – not to mention Mark.” She gleamed up at Patience from under exquisitely plucked eyebrows. “And mind you, not a word about this afternoon’s jaunt or I’ll have the police on you.” She laughed as she spoke, but the words still rang uncomfortably in Patience’s head as she changed into one of her two evening dresses. How far was Mrs Ffeathers serious? Surely not at all? But she found it hard to convince herself of this. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, she longed to leave Featherstone Hall that night. No matter where she went, so long as it was away.
There was a light tap on her door. “And remember” – Mrs Ffeathers was resplendent in black velvet – “if you run away, I’ll call the police the minute you’re out of the house.”
Afterwards, Patience wondered why she had not left the house on the spot, but at the time it seemed, for some reason, cowardly. She grinned at old Mrs Ffeathers. “I’m not running away,” she said. “Why should I?”
The long glass table in the white dining room was decorated with holly and red ribbon bows. It did not, Patience thought, make the room any less blankly funereal. It merely looked as if someone had decided to send red flowers to a corpse. She said so to Mark, who sat next to her.
“Yes,” he said. “Karl Marx, no doubt. I don’t know what induced Gran to let Mother and Uncle Joseph loose on this house. It was quite inhabitable before they laid on all the chromium. Another of her experiments, I suppose. Which reminds me; where on earth did you disappear to this afternoon? I looked all over for you; Mar and I went into Brighton to sit on Father Christmas’s knee. I even bearded the lion in her den and asked Gran where you were, and she cackled just like the witch in the gingerbread house and said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’. I was really afraid she’d turned you into a white mouse or something. Not that she could,” he hastened to add. “A white deer, perhaps, but never a mouse.”
Patience laughed, relieved that he had talked himself away from the question of where she had been. She was not sure she wanted to talk about that. She looked up the long table, searching for a new subject. “Full house tonight.” Hardly brilliant, but it would do.
“Yes, Christmas Eve in the workhouse, and the paupers lined up with their basins and spoons.” There was a bitter note in Mark’s voice than she did not like to hear. “What do you think of our young men on approval?” he went on, glancing at the other side of the table, where Mary was voluble beside her Tony, and Priss silent misery beside Brian Duguid.
“Priss doesn’t seem to think much of hers.”
“No, I’m afraid Aunt Emily’s missed the bus this time – not that she doesn’t always, poor old duck. And Gran’s revelling in it; just look at her. She’s having such a good time she’s forgotten all about shocking Tony Wetherall. It’s her favourite indoor sport, you know, frightening poor Mary’s young men away. Give me a hand turning her off if she tries it after dinner, will you? I don’t think much of him myself, but Mar seems to want him and I suppose she knows best.”
“I suppose so,” Patience agreed, casting a doubtful glance at Tony’s amiable if unimpressive countenance. He had turned for the moment to Priss, who sat on his other side, and was making weekend conversation about the weather.
“All things to all men,” breathed Mark in her ear. “Don’t forget he’s in public relations, God help him.”
“At least it’s a job.” Patience felt suddenly moved to defend the innocuous Tony.
“Spoke the career girl. Don’t tell me you think a job would add to my natural charm. I never found anything I wanted to work at, myself.”
“You did at Cambridge.”
“Don’t tell me Mother has been boasting about my honours and glories. I didn’t think she was that human a parent. But work at Cambridge wasn’t work, my good girl, not within the meaning of the act. Nobody paid me for it, for one thing; quite the reverse.”
“And being paid puts you off? It’s an unusual point of view
.”
“All my points of view are unusual. I specialise in them. But, Patience, would you really prefer me as a working man? Because if so I shall have to take it seriously under consideration. What would you prefer? A bowler and a briefcase in Whitehall or a topper and an umbrella in the City?”
“Oh, the top hat by all means; it would suit you.” Patience made a quick grab at the lighter side of the question. It was, she felt, showing dangerous signs of getting out of hand. After all, what affair was Mark’s career of hers?
“Come now, don’t wash your hands of me.” He shared his grandmother’s disconcerting gift for mind-reading. “I was beginning to hope—”
His hopes were interrupted by his grandmother’s powerful voice. “When you’ve quite finished, Mark, perhaps you’ll be so good as to open the door for me.” While they had been absorbed in their suddenly meaningful conversation she had risen and drawn her black velvet – and the other ladies – around her, so that they were now grouped behind Mark and Patience. He hurried to obey her, only muttering under his breath to Patience as he went: “Look out; the old girl’s getting jealous.” Of whom, Patience was still wondering as she poured the coffee for the other ladies in the drawing room.
The men were allowed no extension of their usual ten minutes’ grace in the dining room, nor, Patience suspected, would they have been particularly grateful for one. They were an ill-assorted lot, she thought, watching Joseph stalk into the room ahead of a silent group. Tony Wetherall, she noticed with amusement, had managed to find a subject in common with Brian Duguid – or did their animated conversation about the clubs they did and did not belong to merely conceal their discomfort at the odd Christmas Eve they found themselves sharing?
She looked around the room. What, after all, was so odd about it? A handsome and prosperous-looking family gathered in the matriarch’s house for Christmas. What could be more right and proper? And of course the occasion made for a certain extra feeling of formality; it was ridiculous to imagine that there was anything more in the air than that. Yet she could not help it. The scene was a caricature of a family party.
Mrs Ffeathers had risen and was dominating the room in her black velvet. “Lady Macbeth tonight,” whispered Mark in Patience’s ear.
“Well,” said the old lady in her surprisingly beautiful voice, “here we are all together for another family Christmas and I think we should celebrate it by doing something sociable – playing games, perhaps. Not happy families, I think” – a wicked, bright eye swept the room – “but something a little more exciting. Hunt the fiver would be fun, don’t you think, Seward? And blind man’s buff, with me for blind man. But to begin with, I think perhaps some charades would be nice; I’ll pick one side and Patience can pick the other. No buts, Patience; it’s time you learnt to take your place properly. After all, any day now you may be running this house yourself.”
Effectively silenced, Patience dutifully picked her side, grateful for the support Mark was soon giving her. She hated amateur theatricals of any kind and it was thin consolation to notice that so did everyone else in the room – with the obvious exception of Mrs Ffeathers, who was, after all, a professional, and the possible one of Brian Duguid who was throwing himself with evangelical enthusiasm into the problem of choosing a word for Patience’s team. She found herself wondering whether some of his joyful energy was not due to the fact that Priss was drooping lethargically on the other side. “Poor Priss,” muttered Mark as he swathed Patience in yards of black muslin, “they’d better cast her as a domino with all those white buttons.”
Patience laughed. “Don’t be mean. It was a good idea putting them on that black dress; Mary says they’re madly fashionable this year.”
“And Mary should know.” He glanced approvingly at his sister in her sideswept crimson. “Careless of you not to pick Tony, Patience; just look at him suffering over there, poor man. Gran’s telling him she accompanied herself on the piano in red boots; I can tell by the gleam in her eye. And it may have been a good idea” – he reverted to Priss’s dress – “but you must admit the execution is lamentable. Poor Priss has never done anything right in her life.”
“Mark, you are a cat; I don’t know why they say women are worse than men.” It was time to change the subject; he was going to start protesting something or other. “How on earth are we going to act ‘of’?”
“Suggestion, of course. You be the Queen of Sheba and I’m your devoted slave. Or if you prefer it I’ll be ‘Of Street’ and you can walk over me. I’d enjoy that.”
“Oh, you’re impossible.” But she was laughing as she turned to Brian Duguid who had some extremely practical suggestions as to how they should act out ‘inoffensiveness’: “We did it when I was in boy scout camp once, I remember, and it was the greatest success. I was a riot as the Loch Ness monster, though I do say so.”
“That’s it,” Mark joined in, “and this time you can come on in your boy scout uniform at the end and that’ll be ‘inoffensiveness’. Come on, Patience, you’re on as the barmaid. Your dress is just lerrvely; you should always wear black.”
The evening did nothing to shake Patience’s dislike of amateur dramatics. She got through her part in their own charade as best she might and was relieved when it was instantly guessed by Joseph who had, she suspected, had a rendezvous with Mark at the dining room sideboard. “Told you we wouldn’t be left struggling for long,” Mark said, helping her out of the white sheet in which she had impersonated inoffensiveness. “Now for the front row of the stalls. I warn you Gran’s terrific, but it’s as well to watch her.”
In fact, Patience found herself liking old Mrs Ffeathers better than ever before as she watched her act out ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ à la Ruth Draper with only the most negligible support from the rest of her team who were only too glad to bask in her shadow. She was so patently disappointed when Brian Duguid tactlessly guessed the word at the fifth syllable that Patience found herself insisting, as rival captain, that she go ahead and act out the rest. “Bright idea,” muttered Mary from the sofa where Tony Wetherall had somehow managed to join her. “Perhaps even Gran’ll be satisfied by that and we can get on to the next stage of the ordeal.”
“What’s that?” Tony’s pink face looked nervous. It was not, Patience could see, at all what he had expected of a country Christmas.
“Christmas stockings, my pet; all along the mantelpiece in Gran’s room.” Mary had obviously decided to carry off the situation with a high hand, and Patience could not help admiring her for it. And after all, what situation was there? There was nothing so odd about charades on Christmas Eve. She looked round the room as she had done earlier in the evening, trying to decide what it was that gave the occasion its peculiarly explosive quality. Surely not old Mrs Ffeathers, gleefully clowning her way through her act? What could be more sympathetic than the old stager enjoying a last fling on the boards?
At the same time you could not really blame her family, some looking uncomfortable, some bored. It must have happened to them so many times before. But there was more to it than that. The conversation that Seward and his wife had been carrying on at intervals throughout the evening had an unmistakable note of urgency. She was pressing him to some course of action with a vigour Patience had hardly thought her capable of. It was surprising, she thought, that none of the others seemed to have noticed it, but then they all had their own preoccupations. Mary had been busy all evening trying to make the scene as normal as possible for Tony’s benefit – a full-time job with her grandmother letting off fireworks at more than the usual rate. Joseph had spent every minute he had been able to in the dining room and looked scarcely the better for it; any minute now, Patience thought, he would start pinching somebody. His wife had spent the evening following her daughter with large, anxious eyes, putting in a word here and a nervous twist to the offending rows of buttons there, and receiving in return, Patience could see, considerably less than courtesy. Priss was in one of the cold black moods Patience
remembered from their childhood and had so comprehensively snubbed Brian Duguid that even his lamblike spirit was roused to retaliation. This took the form of a devoted attention to Patience that Mark found extremely trying.
“Can’t you get rid of your boyfriend?” he muttered under cover of the round of semi-spontaneous clapping that greeted Mrs Ffeathers’ exit. “I want to talk to you.”
“Now?” Patience was not sure she was ready for conversation on the level his tone implied.
“No time like the present. On the first day of Christmas …” But the clapping had died suddenly and Brian Duguid heard and took him up. “Oh, good egg; let’s sing some carols. Christmas isn’t Christmas without them, is it, Patience?”
Patience was spared the trouble of replying by the reappearance of Mrs Ffeathers who ordered them all upstairs to her own room. “A little Christmas surprise.” Her caricature of a dear old lady was perfectly in tune with the occasion.
Five
Trimmed with holly, old Mrs Ffeathers’ red plush room was more than ever the saloon bar. An appropriate fire blazed in the hearth, and beside it, under a bush of mistletoe, Mrs Ffeathers sat enthroned in her great, red chair. She watched her family sardonically as they shuffled in and found their seats, the younger members of the party uncomfortable on cushions round the fire, their elders in the ring of chairs behind them.
“I see you can all resist the temptation to kiss me.” Mrs Ffeathers cast a half humorous eye upwards.
“We didn’t dare, Mama; you looked so regal.” Joseph stooped from his favourite position on the hearth to rectify the omission.
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